Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Having the government do anything like this should be anathema to any "conservative". Within 10 years we'd have 3 undersecretaries, 5 deputy assistant secretaries and 25 assistant secretaries of the Department of Giving Away The $300M Battery Prize.
It is nice to know that out of my entire post about Newt's complete BS this was the only thing you could criticize.
BTW, new poll out today, about 45% of Americans are for increasing offshore drilling. Not Newt's 75%+.
Using water as fuel for our cars is really a stupid idea. Water is what we all need. When you used up all of it what will we drink? the world already have water shortage.
I think using battery might be a better idea.
Drilling is a bad idea. We are distroying earth. The Artic will have no more ice in 20 yrs due to drilling and pollution.
Manufacturing batteries with today's technology is futile and the waste generated during manufacturing and when batteries are retired makes for problems also. I think short term hybrids are the way to go.
If drilling were so great, why aren't the oil companies using the current offshore drilling leases that they already have. They are not drilling on a significant portion of the leased areas, which they should hit up before drilling in ANWAR.
People fall for some real nonsense! How about starting by regulating our commodities markets so we're not paying higher prices because of the likes of Enron-type look-alikes. On the one hand the oil execs say its all supply and demand and these prices are totally out of their control. On the other hand, the markets are causing this. So then I guess its NOT supply and demand. So which is it oil industry? Which response suits you better?
IMO, it doesn't seem like the oil industry will be saving the oil situation and our ever weakening economy for the American people. They are actually reaping record profits, one of them (forget which) having this past year earned the most profit of any corporation ever in American history.
In many of the areas the leases are held the oil has yet to be located, hence the reason it is called Oil Exploration, or the price will have to go higher to make it worthwhile to extract from the ground, or we don't have the ability to drill it. Canada has had a similiar sitiuation with their Oil Sands (Link included) and just recently they have the $$ and technology to go after this resource. The oil off the coast of Florida would be very easy for us to get. We have better technology and we have drillers ready with equipment that could go tomorrow. Eric Bolling(CNBC, FOX) has done several interviews and research and has found that from the day congress lifts the ban on drilling it would only take two years to get the oil refine the oil and pump it into our american tanks. Price on gas would drop to $3/gal. by end of 2008 and in 2009 it would fall to $2/gal. He has talked on CNBC and FOX about this. Another problem that I have heard talked about only on CNBC is that a higher % than normal of the oil that has been pulled from the middle east is too high in sulphur and it can't be refined as ther are not alot of refineries that can handle high sulphur oil. India is building a new refinery but I don't know when it comes on line. Oil that just sits and can't be put into production is a problem for all of us. Now if China and Venezuela are already drilling thru a lease aquired with Cuba 50 miles off the coast of Florida, I ask who will be more concerned with an oil spill near our coast? Who will take time and measures to protect our land? The communist and social dictators or the american companies that hire american workers. Why don't we DRILL HERE DRILL NOW DRILL and PAY LESS!! "Saudi Aramco hopes to double the number of drilling rigs in operation from 30 to 60 as soon as possible. Apart from increasing overall output, the company aims to develop more sweet oilfields. Most Saudi production consists of sour crude, which is oil with a high sulphur content, while sweet crudes--those with a low sulphur content--are considered to be of better quality. In particular, Saudi Aramco has targeted the expansion of sweet production on the Shaybah field in the Empty Quarter close to the United Arab Emirates. Production on the 15.7m barrel field already stands at 600,000 b/d but the company believes that it could eventually top 1m b/d."http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2742/is_355/ai_n25107668
The "Drill Here Drill Now" mouthings of Newt and others are cheap sound bites now that gas prices are a hot-button issue for the nation. There is a word for people who resort to this "of the moment" grandstanding, demagogue: defined by Webster's Dictionary as "a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power." Gee, no kidding. Hey Newt, take a seat next to Dobson, Sharpton, Robertson, Jesse Jackson, et al.
It will take years for off-shore oil to get into the refining stream, and it won't last that long once it starts flowing. We need to get on with using less and putting REAL effort and $$$ into electric cars.
The "Drill Here Drill Now" mouthings of Newt and others are cheap sound bites now that gas prices are a hot-button issue for the nation. There is a word for people who resort to this "of the moment" grandstanding, demagogue: defined by Webster's Dictionary as "a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power." Gee, no kidding. Hey Newt, take a seat next to Dobson, Sharpton, Robertson, Jesse Jackson, et al.
It will take years for off-shore oil to get into the refining stream, and it won't last that long once it starts flowing. We need to get on with using less and putting REAL effort and $$$ into electric cars.
We are a generation away from being of fossil fuels. There is a saying for people like you "ignorance is bliss".
http://www.thomhartmann.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=838&Item id=118
Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon discusses the Republican's meme of a "ban" on offshore drilling, when there is in fact only a moratorium on new licenses that was enacted by George H.W. Bush; the oil companies are sitting on many viable leases for which they are not drilling.
There is a shortage of equipment, trained manpower. And there is a field, the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, which has been proven by oil wells which have been capped, which is larger than ANWR is estimated to be.
Thom Hartmann interviews Congressman Peter DeFazio, 18 June 2008
[Thom]:
I'm getting messages going in 16 different directions around this whole "ban on offshore drilling".
And yet, I understand that maybe "ban" is the wrong word. Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon is with us, and Congressman, welcome to the show.
[DeFazio]: Thanks Thom. "Ban" sort of as broadly used implies there are no places that are suitable for, and available for, drilling off of America's coast. Now, to the contrary, there are 44 million acres off the coast leased, 10.5 million acres of that has been developed, but the other 33.5 million acres are available for offshore drilling.
[Thom]: So, off the coast of California, off the Cost of Florida right now...
[DeFazio]: There's a moratorium on new leases beyond those which are outstanding. Now I think most of the leases outstanding are probably in the Gulf but my understanding in talking to Lois Capps from California is there is about to be an agreement to do further drilling even off Santa Barbara, the most sensitive area in the country, using the existing oil platforms with some new slant drilling underwater drilling techniques which are going to be signed off on very broadly. So, you know, there are concerns in particularly inshore drilling in California and other states. But the point is, many of the most promising areas, according to our Minerals Management Service, 80 percent of the potential available offshore oil, all of it geologically available, not environmentally, is accessible from the existing leases.
And then, the bigger one that I talked about ? Bill Clinton took something that used to be called the Naval Petroleum Reserve which has massive known reserves, the largest known in the continent.
[Thom]: 13 billion barrels?
[DeFazio]: 13.4 billion, b, billion barrels known reserves underneath what was called the National Petroleum Reserve, renamed the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska from the Naval Petroleum Reserve. [Thom]: Right, and this is not ANWR.
[DeFazio]: No, this is just west of ANWR, the other side of the pipeline. It's a little bigger area. It's a little bit further from the pipeline, but not much and they've drilled 25 test wells and capped them. And it has known reserves. And there is no move to access that oil ? pipelines or anything else.
[Thom]: So let me boil this down, Congressman DeFazio. Number one, the word "ban" is a Republican meme, this is Newt Gingrich, Newt Gingrich is orchestrating this thing, and...
[DeFazio]: Sure. This is their way back to the majority and the White House, yeah.
[Thom]: Right, what they're trying to do is blame the cost of gasoline, half of which is the result of the decrease in the value of the dollar, the other quarter of which is arguably a function of supply and demand on the market place, who knows, and speculation, you add them all together, but I mean, if we were paying for gas in Euros right now we'd be paying two dollars and 25 cents a gallon. So they're going to try and shift the blame away from the Bush administration and their failed and catastrophic policies onto Democrats and environmentalists, number one.
And number two, you're saying that there is not a ban and in fact, what we've got, I mean, I'm looking at this Committee on Natural Resources report. Between 1997 and 2007 the number of drilling permits, now we're actually talking about permits for drilling, on public lands increased by 361 percent. There's over ten thousand of these permits that the oil companies are simply, they got them and they're just sitting on them.
So it sounds like what they're trying to do is two things. Number one, make political hay with this, and number two, help their buddies the oil companies get thousands or millions of more acres of land leased to them so that they can sit on it as it continues to appreciate in value as we slide into peak oil or as the value of oil goes up.
[DeFazio]: Eureka! Eureka! You've got it nailed, Thom.
the oil companies are sitting on many viable leases for which they are not drilling.
Why would you expect them to drill where there is:
1. No oil
2. No technology to get to the oil
The ban will expire in 2012 anyway and will not be extended. So do you want to drill now and save money now or do you want to wait spend a ton of money in gas and still drill in 3.5 years?
Dang, can't hear it, no sound card. Can you/will you write out what his three ways are, for us unfortunate ones? Please? TIA
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
All Sound - No Meat
